A couple of weeks ago, we talked about Cost and Profit centers. One practical solution offered was to separate the acquisition / reactivation budget into it's own cost center from the house file development budget which should become it's own profit center. Instead of looking at both of these together as a profit center. Today we are going to talk about the house file consisting of any donor that has made a donation over the last two years.

I was looking over a client’s budget recently, and something struck me as I was reviewing their acquisition numbers. It started with a relatively simple question. Why are you only budgeting to bring in 8,000 new donors?

The Quarterly Fundraising Effectiveness Project report was released this week and results aren’t good. At DonorTrends, we keep a close eye on FEP trends. It is the most important industry benchmark, representing more than 17,000 organizations. These transactions make up the Growth in Giving database [GiG]. This is the biggest database of its kind and provides organizations across the sector benchmarks to gauge their own progress.

What's the difference between reporting and analysis? According to Salesforce, reporting is answering the question, "What is happening?" and analysis is answering the question, "Why is it happening?" (You can read more about it in this blog post. ) While this is a good distinction, I don't think most people are much concerned with this nuance. We all try to answer both of these questions when looking at a report. The natural next step, after figuring out what is happening, is to figure out why.

We know how many capes you have to wear. Fighting the good fight, trying to raise money to fund critical programs. We're here to help. We're using this space to collect tips and trends that will help strengthen your fundraising superpowers. Together, we'll fight Fundraising Foes like donor attrition, downgrading, and rising costs.